VideoGamer.com remembers the Dreamcast

The Dreamcast is 10 years old today. SEGA’s last home console may have had a short, unloved life, with Sony’s all conquering PlayStation 2 obliterating it off the face of the planet – or at least off of store shelves – but we loved it (well at least some of us did). So to mark its 10th birthday (it lives on in our hearts), we’ve put together our fondest Dreamcast memories and experiences of the console many agree paved the way for the “current generation”. Seb, sickeningly, was only 12 years old when the Deamcast launched, but even he has loads to say about it.

Tom Orry, Editor

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that giant Killer Whale leap out of the sea. I remember lugging the console and games round to a friend’s house just to show him how amazing Sonic Adventure looked, and it worked. We’d all been big N64 fans for the years previous to the Dreamcast launch, and seeing games like Sonic Adventure just blew our tiny minds. It was a real step up from anything we’d seen before. I remember watching the first videos of Sonic Adventure on an ancient laptop using what can’t have been any better than a 28.8k dial up internet connection. The videos were tiny and took hours to download, but it was so worth it. I loved my Dreamcast and stood by it until the end. It was a console that ushered in a new generation and did things other consoles took years to copy, and years more to better. Sega’s little white box brought my friends and I years of entertainment, and was home to some of the best first-party games a console has ever seen. Bring on the Dreamcast 2!

Wesley Yin-Poole, Deputy Editor

My fondest memory of the ill-fated Dreamcast is buying a second hand one, as well as Virtua Tennis 2, for next to nothing from GAME back in the early Naughties. As a member of staff I was allowed to buy traded-in games for pretty much the value they were traded in at, within reason. As soon as the Dreamcast was handed in as part exchange for a PS2 (something I imagine a lot of people did), I wrapped it in a huge plastic GAME bag, sealed the opening with tape and stuck a Post-it note marked: WEZ on it. I love Virtua Tennis, and this was just the opportunity I had been waiting for – with any luck, management would let slide the fact that they would miss out on the tidy profit reselling the console would bring. Somehow, it worked, but I never made the most of my good fortune. While I know the Dreamcast is considered by many to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, home console ever released, it never did it for me. Shenmue didn’t interest me, nor did Sonic Adventure. And (hush hush), I thought the PS2 looked worth waiting for.

James Orry, News Editor

So, I was going to write about how I spent hours downloading thumbnail sized videos released during a Tokyo Game Show on a 28.8 modem many moons ago in order to get a pixelated glimpse of Sonic running around in fancy 3D. But I see Tom has already beaten me to the punch on that one. My second most vivid Dreamcast memory, other than the day the console arrived along with what must have been almost all the UK launch games (thank you Simply Games for getting me my console at launch), is of a few weeks before launch, when I got to play a Dreamcast at my local Virgin Cinema. SEGA had littered the place with demo pods, featuring playable versions of Sonic Adventure and SEGA Rally. I’d turned up with Tom and a friend to watch some films using our six week cinemas passes, but ended up spending hours stood huddled around the pod, each taking turns to grasp the controller in our hands. In fact, the only thing to leave a bigger impression on my summer was The Matrix.

Neon Kelly, Previews Editor

Shameful though it may be to admit, I only ever played the Dreamcast once – so my lone memory of the console is also my fondest by default. One day, at the age of sixteen, I found myself loitering around Kingston with a mate during our college lunchbreak. We went into Argos (ah, the glory of adolescence) and had a go on the demo for Ready 2 Rumble Boxing. I thought it was pretty good, but I remember saying that I thought that the PS2 would be much better. My friend took deep offence at this, because his uncle supposedly worked for SEGA. This didn’t make much sense to me at the time, but then he was probably talking bollocks anyway. That’s my one and only memory of SEGA’s little grey box, although I vaguely recall that everyone complained about the controller leads falling out. Oh, and I really, really wanted to play Shenmue. But I never did.

Seb Ford, Video Producer

Technically it was my brother’s, but no doubt I got more than my fair share of time on the thing. In many ways the Dreamcast really was well ahead of its time; during a drunken retrospective game of SoulCalibur I was truly shocked by its excellent graphics. But games like Sonic Adventure 2, Phantasy Star Online, Shenmue 2 and Crazy Taxi are what instantly spring to mind when I think of the Dreamcast. With Sonic you could keep your pet Chao on the VMU and train it up on the go, much like a Tamagotchi, only with purpose. I think in the end we got both of the Crazy Taxis, and succeeded in completing neither of them. I forget if it was the overall difficulty level or just our ears being over-saturated with the same three or four Offspring tracks that finally saw those games hit the shelf of eternal dust-gathering. Our Dreamcast was wired up to a tiny old TV, and it never really felt like we got the most out of it, and ultimately about two years after it joined our family, it left, stubbornly refusing to display anything at all. Nevertheless I treasure some fond memories of that thing, and it would be nice after all these years to let those dusty games see some use once again.

The Safety Badger, Health and Safety Officer

During its THREE YEARS of retail activity, there wasn’t a single FATALITY or ACCIDENT resulting in PERMANENT DISFIGUREMENT that can be directly linked to USAGE of the SEGA DREAMCAST. On the basis of this CRITERION, I deem the console to have been a SUCCESS.

What’s your fondest Dreamcast memory? Do you like SEGA’s console more than most of this miserable lot? Let us know in the comments below.